


Listen, let go; drown within the melody

by aroundu



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: Cats, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implications of bad home life, Light Angst, hair cutting, it's like one line though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-03-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:14:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23015347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aroundu/pseuds/aroundu
Summary: Hinata is in distress after attempting to cut his own hair. Yuuta reminds him he doesn't have to act on his own.
Relationships: Aoi Hinata & Aoi Yuuta
Comments: 2
Kudos: 35
Collections: 2wink





	Listen, let go; drown within the melody

_ The smallest sign can give away that you're feeling it. _

* * *

Yuuta ran his hands through his hair. It was getting long now, reaching past his shoulders. He hadn’t realized it had grown out so much until Tori pointed it out in class by tugging on one end of it. Now, Yuuta was home and looking in the bathroom mirror. He tilted his head this way and that, determining where it would be best to cut it. Should he go shorter than usual? Or cut the split ends so it continued to grow out?

A knock on the door and a quiet “Yuuta-kun?” brought Yuuta’s attention away from his reflection in the mirror.

“What, aniki?” Yuuta grabbed the hairbrush off the sink and brushed it through his hair. The brush caught on knots and Yuuta winced as he attempted to brute force the knots away. His hair really did need a trim; it was starting to get tangled way too much.

Yuuta waited for his brother’s response, and what came was not words, but the sound of sniffling. Yuuta sighed and set the brush down, turning to open the door.

Hinata stood with hunched shoulders and one hand clutching the end of his hair. His head was dipped down but raised when Yuuta opened the door, his eyes red and cheeks glistening from the bathroom light.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Yuuta reached out and grabbed Hinata’s arm, pulling him into the bathroom.

“I tried cutting my hair.” Hinata let his hand fall, revealing the choppy ends on one side of his head. “It didn’t- I messed up. I really didn’t want to bug you, and I thought I could do it on my own.” Hinata sniffled again, his arms wrapping around himself.

Yuuta frowned at his brother’s words. He knew he ignored him a bit more lately, but he was hoping to get some independence, for the sake of them both. He figured it’d be good if they did some growing on their own instead of together for once. And yet, Yuuta had pushed too far and made his brother think he wouldn’t help him.

Wordlessly, Yuuta positioned Hinata in front of the mirror. He grabbed the hairbrush off the counter and began working out the knots in Hinata’s hair. He saw Hinata flinch occasionally in the mirror as he brushed through a particularly rough spot, and it made Yuuta question if his brother had even properly prepared before trying to cut his hair.

“Aniki. You know you can come to me for help, right?” Yuuta huffed as he finally detangled a nasty bit of hair and did a final round of brushing throughout all of it.

Hinata shuffled his feet. “I thought I’d try on my own. Independence and stuff, that’s what you said. I just didn’t want to make you mad.”

“I won’t ever be angry at you like that, not like  _ him _ . You don’t have to tread so lightly around me. We’re still brothers. I’ll help you with stuff like this,” Yuuta said softly. “Where did you put the scissors? I’ll go grab them”

“In our room. I think they may have fallen under the bed.”

Yuuta left the bathroom and walked to his and Hinata’s shared room. A meow greeted Yuuta as he pushed open the door and a black cat picked herself up from the top bunk to climb down to run herself against his legs.

“Hey, Miku. You know where the scissors are?” Yuuta smiled as she purred and nuzzled her head into his outstretched hand. He knelt down to look under the bed and saw the scissors. 

Yuuta doubted his brother purposefully placed scissors under the bed, so he wondered how they had gotten there. He eyed the full length mirror hung on the wall next to their bunk beds and the few stray pieces of orange hair on the ground, gears spinning in his mind attempting to figure out what happened.

Miku meowed and batted Yuuta’s arm, turning his attention away from the mirror and to the black cat trying to eat his toes. It was for the best Miku distracted him; there’s no point in thinking about his brother’s failed attempt at cutting his own hair.

He reached for the scissors, dodging Miku’s insistent pawing at his hand for attention, and pulled them out. They were years old but high quality, so they were deemed the hair cutting scissors.

Yuuta returned to Hinata playing with the end of his chopped side of hair with a frown, but upon Yuuta’s entrance the frown dropped off his face to be replaced with a smile, yet his eyes were still dull.

Yuuta snipped the scissors at him. “Drop the act, Aniki.”

“Huh~? No act here. Just happy to have my hair be cut.” Hinata laughed but it was as tersely pitched as nails on a chalkboard.

Yuuta narrowed his eyes at his brother. It was a pain, but this wasn’t anything big enough to get into a fight over. Some days Yuuta wanted to scold his brother to stop trying to act so carefree, but today Yuuta felt too guilty over the little tragedy that became Hinata’s hair. So, if his brother wanted to pretend, then Yuuta would play along with him.

“You know, Miku was sleeping on  _ my _ bed when I went in there.” Yuuta opened a drawer and grabbed a comb from it. Holding the scissors in his left hand and the comb in his right, he turned Hinata to face him and began evening out what Hinata had started cutting.

Hinata stuck his tongue out. “She’s just confused. Miku knows who loves her the most.”

“And yet she always seems to be on my bed.”

“Only cause your cat keeps scaring her off mine!”

“Stop moving so much.” Yuuta paused in his cutting until Hinata became still again. “Chibi is nothing but an angel. You should be nicer to her.”

“I still haven’t forgiven her for that one time she bit me.” Hinata rubbed his hand where he had been bit months ago, and Yuuta rolled his eyes at his overdramatic action.

Yuuta turned Hinata to face the mirror and combed through the side of his hair, snipping the ends carefully. Even though they used the same shampoo, Hinata’s hair always felt rougher, dry and coarse to the touch. It wasn’t as long as Yuuta’s, maybe a centimeter or two shorter, but it had plenty more dead ends. 

Orange hair fell to the ground in small pieces as Yuuta worked. Hinata was growing antsy, his fingers tapping against the counter. 

“I’m almost done.” 

“Thank you, Yuuta-kun,” Hinata said quietly. Yuuta glanced at his brother’s reflection in the mirror and saw the smile had been dropped. It was a face Yuuta had seen less and less of in recent years. Truthfully, Hinata’s resting face would be deemed creepy by strangers who only knew him as a smiling and cheery kid, but Yuuta found great comfort in it. Ever since Mom died and their father-figure grew absent, they only had each other. Hinata knew his face could be scary and over time his true features became hidden behind a smile, along with his honest thoughts and feelings.

This face though, it was honest. A reminder to the days where they were lonely, but alone together. When there was only the other twin to find solace in. Yuuta couldn’t help but be nostalgic to those simple days.

Yuuta snipped one last time and stepped back. “There we go. You can’t even see where you started before.”

Hinata tilted his head and checked his angles in the mirror, his hand creeping up to brush through it. He turned to Yuuta.

“You already said thanks,” Yuuta cut him off before he could speak. The skin around Hinata’s eyes crinkled in a fond expression- he always did that when Yuuta beat him to the punch.

“Well, then I need to repay you now don’t I?”

Yuuta handed him the scissors. “Yeah yeah. Don’t rush it, I have a lot more hair than you.”

“Hehe~ I’ll do my best.”

* * *

_The smallest sign can give away that you value it._

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Birthday 2wink!!!!  
> Title, summary, and beginning/ending lines taken from [this cover of Setsuna Plus](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swp6hZmv56Q)


End file.
